Ben Gazzara, Guatemala Main Attractions of Looking for Palladin

October 27, 2009

Andrzej Krakowski pegs his water-treading labor-of-love indie to the always cool but here too blithe Ben Gazzara, playing a reclusive screen legend dodging a pushy agent. Guatemalan location-shooting is the only other attraction. Suited and earpieced on the colorful streets of Antigua, Josh Ross (David Moscow, kinda still “the kid from Big“) incompetently hunts after Jack Palladin (Gazzara), repeatedly striking out with the locals, to their great mirth but not ours. Jack (whose list of movies reinforces the Palance echo of his name) is inexplicably hiding out as a cook at a nice restaurant, where he also dodges a small, aimless film crew that mostly sits around a table. Josh’s other, convoluted agenda—Jack’s ex-wife was also his (inattentive, famous) mother—leads to some anticlimactic chats about the overgrown youngster’s feelings of resentment. Requiring cuts, some sense of direction, and dialogue that doesn’t either declare or dither, the film looks like it was fun to make.